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The Mini Boatyard

Things have been moving forward quite a bit in the past weeks. I have finally found a permanent place to build the “big” (Mini 6.50) boat. It’s a 48sqm shed inside a huge industrial hall - and it’s in Berlin, so I don’t have to travel forever to get to it. The one problem this place has is that the shed itself has no roof, which is going to make heating it quite a challenge, but I’ll worry about that next winter.

I’ve moved the dinghy out of my office meeting room into the shed and started adding some basic furniture such a a big table, shelves and a cabinet to lock away the power tools.

In parallel I have been emailing Dudley Dix and Woodtec boats in Greece to in order to get the boat kit ready and shipped to Berlin in the next weeks.

If everything goes to plan (ha!) I can start building in May. Until then I’m hoping to finish the Dinghy - the outside still needs epoxy coating, the whole boat needs to be painted and the seats and buoyancy foam have to be installed.

Lastly I’m planning to do an online video series about the build, so I’ve moved some video gear to the shed as well. The lighting situation at the shed is pretty bad at the moment, so I’ll have to see about that, but I just bought a wireless lav mic so sound should be pretty good.

Next steps:

set up workshop table

do a test video

finish ordering the boat kit

coat dinghy with epoxy

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More photos from the dinghy. The inside is now coated in epoxy which means I could use it as a bathtub. Next on: coating the outside so we can call it a boat.

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Finding a boat building workshop, part 1

Today was the first time I physically went to a place that could have been used as a workshop for building The Boat.

It was located in the far north west of Berlin in a pretty shabby backyard. There were a few car (wash, repair) companies that matched the look of said backyard. Perfect for my purpose - the shabbier the cheaper.

I was shown a room with no windows and a gate that left a 30cm gap open, so the inside temperature matched the freezing cold outside. "100 square meters at least" he said. It was actually not more than 60. "€1,200 per month." — that's €20 per square meter!! For a shit hole outside the city with no heating! I could get a luxury loft in Kreuzberg for that money.

The search continues...

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Mini Transat Star Wars

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We’ve been working on a Dinghy over the last holidays but haven’t been able to complete it in time. So now progress is a bit slower with only the weekends available. The hull is almost done though. Next steps are coating it in 2 layers of epoxy, then sawing it in its two halves, then painting.

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360º panoramas of an RM1070 at the Salon Nautique 2014 in Paris.

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Docking when short-handed

Yesterday I stumbled upon a post titled The day our 56’ yacht was almost smashed to pieces on Sailing Britican, and it reminded me that I had been wanting to write a post about docking for a while. Here it is.

Docking/mooring a yacht can be a challenge. Wind, waves and a small crew can make it worse. There's a trick though that I've learned from someone doing a lot of single handed sailing - and docking - that makes it so much easier.

Docking doesn't have to be this hard.

A the basic idea is to get the boat stabilized as quickly as possible with only one line tied to the dock and the engine pulling that line taught. Here's an example: when mooring stern-to with wind coming from starboard:

ignore any mooring lines

motor backwards to the dock

bring out the windward/starboard aft line

immediately put the engine in forward gear and rev it up a bit

relax. your boat is safely tied to the dock and you can take all the time in the world to bring out the mooring and other lines

This tricks works for almost any situation, you just have to think about which line, combined with the engine pulling on it, will prevent the boat from being pushed away by the wind and stabilize it against the dock.

In Sailing Briticain's case they could have used it even after, when the wind increased and they were afraid the mooring line would break. Just turn on the engine and the boat is held by its aft lines as long as there is fuel.

Last but not least you can leave the dock using the same method.

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Banque Populaire XIII - IMOCA on foils

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The kit for building the Eastport Pram has arrived. In two weeks these boxes full of plywood will have turned into a cute little rowing boat.

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First "photo" of the new Pogo 36.

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Going smaller, going Mini

I have to announce a bit of a change to the project. Over lots of thinking and talking during the past weeks it has become clear that while building a 9.5m boat on 1-2 days/week would be doable over the course of 2-3 years, it would stretch my free time as well as my financial resources considerably. Also, it would take a very long time until I could actually use the boat. In addition I realized that I don't really have a good plan what I would do with the boat - given that I have a company to run I don't think I'd be leaving for any long term cruises any time soon.

So: instead of building a 9.5m yacht, I'm scaling it down to a Mini, the 6.5m type of Mini being used for the Mini Transat. Not only can I build this boat in a shorter time (~800-1000h vs. 2000-2500h) with less money, it also simplifies other things such as finding a place to build it.

Incidentally, Dudley Dix not only has the Didi 950 in his program but also the Didi Mini Mk3 – again plywood, flat bottom hull, large rig - but 3m shorter. I'm already talking to people here in Berlin to make me a kit. Others have already started building the Mk3.

This time I even have a plan for after the boat is done. I'll put it into the Baltic Sea first, mostly for long weekends and the one or other week of cruising. I'll also be looking at a few regattas. There are a couple of Mini regattas on the Baltic Sea already, but also other single and double handed races in various places.

Eastport Nesting Pram – nested.

The preparations for the build are ongoing. My next step is to build a small dinghy as a building exercise. It'll be an Eastport Nesting Pram to be built from a kit during the upcoming holidays. During spring I'm hoping to find a place to build and after that's done I can finally start.

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The build of a racing sail boat in Dubai. The first mini 650 built in UAE the Gulf. A high tech racer designed by Dudley Dix Naval Architect, Mini Didi Mk3

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Barcelona World Race film

Beautiful film by the New York Times from on board Hugo Boss during the Barcelona World Race.

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Dominik Lenk and his empty Mini.

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Class 40 panoramic view

Want to take a 360º look around a Class 40 boat? Try these panoramic shots of Juliette Petres's CONCISE.

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Extending a catamaran by 1.5m.